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Brian Krebs on Computer Security

Archive: March 2008

It is rare for the key topics typically covered in this blog -- cybercrime and computer security -- to be wielded as talking points by a major presidential candidate. But in a foreign policy speech last week, presumptive Republican Party...

Security Fix turned three years old this weekend. Since March 2005, this blog has featured roughly 900 entries and attracted more than 14,000 comments. I have enjoyed watching the Security Fix community grow, and owe a big shout of "Thanks!"...

Earlier this month, Security Fix took a look at Dmitry Ivanovich Golubov, a Ukrainian politician once considered by U.S. law enforcement to be a top cybercrime boss. Golubov took rather strong exception to the way he was characterized in that...

Herndon, Va.-based Network Solutions said Wednesday that it suspended Hizbollah.org, an official site of Hezbollah, a Lebanese political and paramilitary group. Turns out, Network Solutions, which was one of the original firms in the domain registration business, was accepting payment...

Last week I wrote a story about how anti-virus companies are struggling to keep up with the huge volumes of viruses and other malware being released on the Internet. The story examined the various ways the anti-virus industry has responded...

Web site name registrar Network Solutions is blocking access to a site owned by a controversial Dutch politician known for his confrontational views about Islam and Muslim immigrants. The move by one of the largest companies in the domain registration...

When businesses want to communicate with their customers via e-mail, many send messages with a bogus return address, e.g. "somethinghere@donotreply.com." The practice is meant to communicate to recipients that any replies will go unread. But when those messages are sent...

The Bush administration is planning to tap a Silicon Valley entrepreneur to head a new inter-agency group charged with coordinating the federal government's efforts to protect its computer networks from organized cyber attacks. Sources in the government contracting community said...

Apple this week pushed out one of its biggest bushels of security updates in a long while, fixing more than 90 vulnerabilities in nearly every major component of its operating system and supporting software. Apple also released updates for the...

The Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain said Monday that a breach of its computer systems may have given criminals access to more than four million credit and debit cards issued by nearly 70 banks nationwide. While the banks appear all but...

A series of well-orchestrated wireless phone-based phishing attacks against several financial institutions last week illustrates how scam artists are growing more adept at fleecing consumers by exploiting security holes in seemingly unrelated Internet technologies. The scams in this case took...

A Ukrainian man once known as one of the top ringleaders in Eastern Europe-based organized cyber crime is now heading up a new political party there. Dmitry Ivanovich Golubov, a 24-year-old from Odessa, is leading the upstart "Internet Party of...

Microsoft today issued four updates to fix at least a dozen security vulnerabilities in its Office software products. All of the updates earned Microsoft's "critical" label, meaning attackers could exploit the flaws to break into Windows systems with little or...

A long-time trusted source recently alerted me that some inappropriate advertisements were running on Neopets.com, a Web site full of addictive Macromedia Flash games aimed at pre-teens. Surprisingly, the curators of Neopets.com -- major media conglomerate Viacom -- are disavowing...

Last week, Security Fix featured the highlights from a non-public report by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) that examined a huge recent spike in the cost of computer intrusions for banks and consumers. I chose not to publish the...

Online tech support forums are starting to light up over an increasing number of PCs sickened by something called the "MonaRonaDona virus," a piece of malware that threatens to trash host computers. As it happens, MonaRonaDona appears to be a...